#2 - JRL 7173MEMORY OF THE PEOPLE'S GREAT FEAT IN THE GREAT
PATRIOTIC WAR IS SACRED

TULA, May 8, 2003. /From a RIA Novosti correspondent/--President Putin
believes that it is the sacred duty of every citizen of Russia to keep alive the
memory of the great exploit accomplished during the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic
War and revere it as a record of bravery, lofty patriotism and spiritual
strength.

Speaking in the hero-city of Tula (250 kilometres south-west of Moscow), at a
gala meeting to mark the 58th anniversary of the Victory, Putin said that
"Victory Day not only brings us together to this time." "We see
what a lot is shared by different generations, and remember that we are all
children of one fatherland - Russia," the head of state said.

According to him, tomorrow we will be celebrating "the most popular and
most radiant holiday - Victory holiday." As the president noted,
practically every Russian family knows about the war not by hearsay, not from
films, "but knows about it from its close ones, from relatives."
According to him, 58 years ago we fought "an incredibly hard and heroic
battle for our Fatherland." "We not only stopped the war, but also
freed the world from Nazism," the head of state stressed.

Victory Day is a bitter-sweet day, the president noted. "We grieve for
those who laid down their lives for freedom, for us who live today," Putin
said. He called attention to the fact that Tula was the city which foiled Nazi
plans to encircle Moscow from the south.

"Today here, in this hall, there are many children of that war,"
who "likewise have their war experience and their memory of it," Putin
said. "In those formidable years our people upheld their history and their
culture," the president underscored.

"On Victory Day we brush against the scorching truth about the war and
realise what it is actually to love one's motherland, country, people and
land," Putin noted.